Do you have a sales funnel in place? Your sales funnel is critically important to your online marketing, as it gives you a predictable way to nurture your leads into prospects, and your prospects into customers. And yet despite its importance, many business owners don’t take the time to think through the process.
Think about how a funnel is used in cooking: Because it’s wide at the top, it’s easy to pour in ingredients. As these ingredients fall down through the funnel, they accumulate at the bottom, and then slowly trickle into the container below.
In the same way, your sales funnel moves all your leads through your sales process, moving qualified prospects further down the process, and eventually resulting in SALES – the very bottom of your funnel.
So, how can you use social media to help with this process? This post will look at the top ways you can drive traffic to your sales funnel using social media.
1. Promote a free lead magnet to your social media audience that leads into your sales funnel.
In my opinion, this is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your sales funnel. In fact, this is the #1 method I rely on to build my own email list.
Here’s how it works: Create a free digital product that your social media audience would find extremely valuable. For instance, if I had a web design business, I might create an eBook called “50 Free Ways to Create Graphics For Your Website”.
Now you can promote this eBook to your social media fans and followers; and because it’s 100% free and highly targeted to your audience, a large percentage of them will be willing and even excited to go to your site and hand over their email in exchange.
2. Promote your blog posts on social media.
This is a no-brainer, and is the way I drive a large percentage of traffic to my site. Promoting your sales page is unlikely to drive much traffic, as promotional content tends not to work well on social media. People are there to connect and to receive valuable free info, and a link to a sales page just doesn’t fit the bill!
Instead, promote your blog posts to your social media audience. If your posts are tailored to your target market, you shouldn’t have trouble getting them to click through to your site.
However, in order to actually move these leads into your sales funnel, you’re going to need to make sure you have a plan to capture the emails of these visitors once they’ve arrived at your site. That’s where a free lead magnet is so important (see #1). Case and point, my top-performing tweet of this year is a blog post, which I highlighted in my post: Twitter as a Business Building Powerhouse.
3. Create social media groups.
Facebook and LinkedIn groups have both advantages and disadvantages. Because groups are designed for collaboration and sharing among members, admins often don’t have the same ‘one to all’ voice they would on a page. However, groups can still be a great way to offer value to your members, while also driving traffic to your website or blog.
Create a group that would be of interest to your audience, and then facilitate discussions among members. Make sure the group is focused on a topic, NOT on your business: for instance, “DIY house renos” instead of “Dave’s Renos, Inc.”. Periodically promote your blog posts and your free lead magnet (#1) to the group, and watch your traffic and email list grow.
4. Write attention-getting headlines.
When posting to social media, paying attention to your headlines can make all the difference. Your headline is 1-2 sentences (often your first sentences), which are aimed at catching the attention of your followers and getting them to click through to your site. There are a ton of tips and tricks that can get people clicking through, and I’ve shared them all in my post, The Ultimate Guide to Writing Social Media Headlines That Get More Clicks.
5. Optimize your social snippets.
When you post a link on social media, a little preview of your content (image, description and title) automatically appears. This is called a social snippet, and it’s extremely important for getting click-throughs to your site. Without them, your links are unlikely to even get seen, never mind clicked.
To make sure your snippets are as enticing as possible, make sure your blog posts have a descriptive title tag and meta tag. Use an SEO plugin, if you have a WordPress site, as these make it super easy to customize these tags. You’ll also want to make sure every single blog post has an eye-catching image….as this will be the image that shows in your preview.
For a complete guide on how to make the most of your social snippets, check out this great post from Social Media Examiner.
Social media is perhaps the most effective channel you have for driving traffic to your sales funnel. Using the 5 tips above are your best bet for attracting leads to your website, and ultimately converting them to into satisfied customers.
Do you have a sales funnel in place? How do you drive traffic to your sales funnel using social media? Share below!
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Thank you specifically for the number 5!! Will definitely implement the tactics in my strategy today! Thanks again!
thanks for this interesting info.